The Best Way to Win in 2024 Is with “Anti-Goals”

Now that it’s February, most of the “New Year, New Me” crowd is back to their old ways.

Go to any gym. Post-New Year’s Day, gyms are slammed with people looking to turn a new leave and lose weight. But now, that crowd has fallen back into their old habits, and regular gym-goers like me are thrilled to have my gym back.

And while I like having my gym back, I feel sad for these people.

Most of society follows a similar pattern: Set goals, try for a bit, fall back into old habits, and never achieve said goals.

And it’s not entirely their fault. Society today tells these people to “take it easy,” to “relax,” to “pay attention to their feelings.” While this has its place, on the whole,  it’s terrible advice for achieving goals.

Let’s explore a different way to attack goal achievement with a business legend and a completely different planning model–anti-goals.

What Are “Anti-Goals?”

Let’s start with the obvious question: What is an anti-goal?

An anti-goal is the opposite of your goal. You want to achieve your goals, but your anti-goals are what you don’t want to achieve. 

For example, if your goal is to get a promotion, your anti-goal would be not getting one. If you want to get in better shape, your anti-goal would be to get in worse shape.

Anti-goals can be as important as goals because they help you focus on what you don’t want and avoid it. Setting an anti-goal can increase your chances of achieving your goal.

Warren Buffet’s business partner, Charlie Munger, lived by this method of thinking:

“Problems frequently get easier if you turn them around in reverse. In other words, if you want to help India, the question you should ask is not ‘How can I help India,’ it’s ‘What is doing the worst damage in India, and how do I avoid it?”

“A lot of success in life and business comes from knowing what you want to avoid: early death, a bad marriage, etc.”

If you’re struggling to reach a goal, think about your anti-goal and use it as motivation to stay on track.

But how exactly does this help us achieve our goals?

To answer that question, we need to break down the psychology of humans.

The Psychology of Human Behavior

In the classical psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud, the pain-pleasure principle suggests that people make choices to avoid or decrease pain or make choices that create or increase pleasure.

The pain-pleasure principle is the core of all the decisions we make. Beliefs, values, actions, and decisions rely on this principle. 

The principle is the foundation of who we are due to how pain and pleasure are interpreted based on personal experiences. We seek pleasure to reward ourselves with immediate gratification. 

The pain-pleasure principle suggests that while seeking pleasure, people will also seek to avoid pain. 

For those individuals where conflict is painful, they will do anything to avoid conflict. Allowing a negative situation to continue might be unhealthy and painful, but the thought of dealing with the conflict is far more painful.

And science has shown that pain is a far stronger motivator than pleasure to accomplish desired states.

Knowing this, let’s look at further benefits of having Anti-goals.

The Benefits of Anti-Goals

Setting an anti-goal may be counterintuitive, but it can be a powerful tool.

Here’s why:

1. It forces you to focus on the process, not the outcome.

Getting too focused on the end result is easy when trying to achieve a goal. But you may not control when or how that goal comes into reality. This experience–not having control–throws people off and makes them give up on their goals.

What’s more important is the journey you take to get there. By setting an anti-goal, you force yourself to focus on the process and what’s in your control. This perspective allows us to enjoy the journey rather than worrying about the destination.

2. It makes you more flexible and adaptable.

Achieving any goal requires some level of flexibility and adaptation. 

The ability to change course when necessary is critical to success. When trying to achieve an opposing goal, you have no choice but to be flexible and adaptable. This adaptability can only help you in the long run, no matter your ultimate goal.

3. It’ll motivate you more.

Imagine for a moment that your goal is to be rich.

Why do you have that goal? I assume it’s because you aren’t financially free. Maybe you’re broke. Whatever your goal is, you’re probably living its opposite.

Your anti-goal automatically becomes, “I want to stay broke and never be rich. I want to stay at this level of poverty until I die.”

How does that feel? Do you like that vision for your life? No. No, you don’t. 

So, to ensure that never happens, you’ll dig deep, get back to work, and take steps toward fulfilling your goals.

This concept is what Brandon Carter talks about here. He calls it his “List of Hate,” it’s a compelling way to keep attacking your goals.

Why Anti-Goals Work & Warnings

So, how do we take our anti-goal setting to the next level?

Before we go there, here’s why anti-goals are so effective.

The concept is grounded in inversion–a foundational mental model that says complex problems are often easier solved backward vs. forward.

Be warned about the habits that can prevent you from achieving your objectives. There are a few critical habits to avoid if you want to set yourself up for success:

1. Avoid putting all your eggs in one basket: When focused on a single goal, it’s easy to become tunnel-visioned and lose sight of the bigger picture. 

This viewpoint can lead to rash decisions to achieve your goal as soon as possible, which can often backfire when the goal isn't met quickly or on your timetable. Instead, balance your various goals and focus on what’s most important.

2. Avoid letting your emotions dictate your actions: It’s normal to feel some anxiety or excitement when striving towards a goal, but letting these emotions take over can lead to impulsive decisions that may not be in your best interest. 

When setting goals, it’s essential to think things through logically and ensure that your actions align with your overall objectives.

In short, keep your emotions in check.

3. Avoid being too rigid: Having a set plan is great, but being too rigid in sticking to that plan can ultimately hinder your progress.

Life is unpredictable, and things rarely go according to plan, so allow yourself some flexibility along the way. If something isn’t working out as you’d hoped, don’t be afraid to adjust course and try something new.

Having clear goals is critical, but often, we can only see one path to achieving the goal. The beauty of anti-goals is that they create many options to avoid the opposite of the goal.

The BMM Takeaway

Entrepreneurship depends on solving problems.

If you solve problems, the marketplace will pay you for it. Of course, the goal becomes to find the solution. But if it were that easy, everyone would find the solution and rake in the money. 

Often, it’s more effective to start solving problems by identifying the sometimes blatantly apparent things that won’t work first. Using the inversion model can flip situations on their head, allowing you–the entrepreneur–to see things differently from society and your competitors.

And the marketplace will pay you handsomely for it.

But don’t take my word for it. Listen to the man who died with a net worth of $2.6 billion at the time of his death and helped Warren Buffett become one of the wealthiest men ever: